


Ache

by prairiecrow



Series: Lethe's Curse [11]
Category: ReBoot (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arguing, Biting, Blood, Blow Jobs, Bondage, Dom/sub, Empathy, Insults, Intersexuality, M/M, Machine Kink, Memory Alteration, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Rough Sex, Spiritual Vampirism, Woman on Top, Xenobiology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-11
Updated: 2012-05-02
Packaged: 2017-11-03 11:34:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/380943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A wiser man than Bob would take the hint and leave Megabyte well enough alone… but Bob, although he prides himself on being clever, has never claimed to be particularly wise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Takes place on the world of Lethe, where Bob and Megabyte awoke stripped of their memories, formed an alliance of convenience — and found themselves, one day, profoundly physically changed. 2) This story is set after "Possession" and before Megabyte makes his bid to overthrow the Red King. 3) A picture of Megabyte and Bob at this point in the chronology: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v189/crowdog66/lethebobmegabyte-1.jpg

It had been cold and rainy since before dawn, the late spring chill soaking into Bob's bones as soon as he left the Red King's palace in spite of his woollen cloak, but that discomfort was a memory now: he was back from his weekly assignment on the Narrow Patrol and safely ensconced in Megabyte's apartments, which were warm and beautifully appointed, much better than his own spartan quarters among those of the Court's other warriors. A full day of horseback riding always left him with a sore ass, and in spite of Megabyte's sly offer to do something to make it feel better Bob had laughed, slid away from the virus's caressing hand, and elected to have a hot bath instead.

Now, having enjoyed a good long soak, he was feeling considerably better — and much more frisky. He sauntered out of the bathroom, damp and deliciously relaxed, with a towel slung low around his hips, a smile on his face, and nothing else —

— to find Megabyte at his massive desk of carved mahogany, which was piled with books and sheafs of paper, reading three of the books simultaneously and making notes in two different ledgers by the clear yellow light of an ornate esoric lamp. His scanning eyes and writing fingers moved at a steady pace that was at least five times what Bob was capable of on his best day, and his face bore an expression that Bob had come to label as his _Not Now, I'm Busy_  look.

Undeterred, the sprite strolled over with a saucy sway to his hips and sidled up behind the virus, glancing over his spiked shoulder at his writing, which was angular and perfectly uniform. His entries in one book were drafted in the characters of the scholarly language of Omalan, which Bob had learned to recognize but not to decipher; in the other, he was speed-writing in Common, alternating between one and the other without missing a beat. The page that Bob could read had something to do with treaties two hundred years ago and furthermore was written in pompous Court-speak, so he ignored it and turned his attention to the back of Megabyte's head.

"Hey," he said softly in clear invitation.

"That took less time than usual," the virus remarked without looking up.

"Yeah, well…" He curved his hands warmly around the column of Megabyte's neck. "I had other things I wanted to do."

"Really?" The tone was polite, but Megabyte didn't look round. Instead he reached out with his left hand, plucked a book off the top of one of the piles, and flipped it open, apparently finding exactly the page he wanted on the first try. He went back to making notes. "Please, don't let me detain you."

"Specifically," Bob continued, running his hands slowly down onto the armour of the virus's upper chest, "I wanted to do _you_."

An elegant little snort of laughter. "Oh _please_ , Bob! You had your chance." A dismissive flick of his left hand. "Now run along and find something else to entertain yourself with, I'm —"

"— really busy. I can see that." Time to up the ante: he brought his right hand back up to apply gliding pressure along the bases of the spines that emerged from Megabyte's vertebrae, where he knew for a fact that the armour transmitted tactile signals particularly strongly. "Are you sure I can't —"

Megabyte flicked his head back, once, as if banishing a troublesome fly, and Bob narrowly dodged the sharp edge of his crest, which would have impacted his chest very pointedly if he hadn't been ready for it. "— change your mind?"

The sidelong glance he got in response was answer enough: narrowed green eyes and the thin line of his lips devoid of any curve of amusement, a _Don't Try My Patience, Boy!_  face par excellence. A wiser man than Bob would have taken the hint and left well enough alone.

Bob, although he prided himself on being clever, had never claimed to be particularly wise. He smiled charmingly and came around Megabyte's right side to settle his damp buttocks on the edge of the desk a few inches from the virus's forearm. " _Really_  sure?" he coaxed, reaching for the hem of the towel that was wrapped around his slim waist.

Megabyte glanced down, the red in his pupils glowing more intensely, but it wasn't Bob's ass he was looking at — it was the sheets of paper that lay under it. "My _notes_ ," he said pointedly. 

"Aw, am I dripping water on them?" He loosened the towel and slowly stripped it open, revealing a hopeful half-erection that twitched and lengthened even more under Megabyte's glare. "If you just took me to bed like I'm asking, that wouldn't be a —"

Megabyte stood up, towering to his full height, practically breathing fire. With one sweep of his arm he cleared the desk of half the books and both ledgers, leaving the lamp where it was — and Bob, the next thing he knew, was picked up with that same effortless strength and slammed down in the centre of the desktop flat on his back, hard enough that the breath exited his lungs in a startled and gratified _oof!_

"You," Megabyte growled, placing both hands flat on either side of Bob's shoulders and leaning over him with eyes ablaze, "are an _infuriating pest_."

Staring up at the enraged virus poised between his thighs and faced with a clear choice — conciliate or challenge — Bob chose to escalate. "Oh yeah? And what are _you_  going to do about it?"

The slow smile that bared silver teeth all the way back to Megabyte's scarlet crest drove home the point that Bob wasn't very wise at all. The vast majority of the time Megabyte presented a perfectly poised and urbane face to the world, the essence of self-control — but Bob had been privileged to see a more primal aspect of his character, and he knew that under that smooth facade dwelt a vicious and rapacious predator with a taste for violence and for blood. He saw it emerging now, and its presence sent a thrill of white-hot excitement through his entire body: he'd always had a taste for danger, and being this creature's lover, especially in moments like this when the animal within was permitted to slip its bonds, set his heart pounding like nothing else.

The virus's voice was a soft purr that made the hair on the back of Bob's neck prickle erect in a way that the most ferocious roar never did: "What I'm going to 'do about it', you impertinent little gadfly, is give you exactly what you've asked for." With his left hand he reached down to enclose Bob's erection (which had been encouraged by the threat of danger to full throbbing hardness) in a silky steel grip, gliding up and down with deceptive gentleness. "That _is_  what you want, isn't it?"

It drove Bob half crazy when Megabyte played this particular game, fondling him while remaining fully armoured; he squirmed and locked his thighs around the virus's, feeling the ridges of the plates digging into his flesh and wanting that edge of pain, wanting _more_. "Come on, Megabyte —" he half-whined, only to be cut off by a kiss that started off light and quickly became crushing, a battle of lips and tongues and raking teeth; he groped upward and clung to the smooth liquid metal that sheathed Megabyte's sides, trying to pull him all the way down and failing. When Megabyte finally granted him room to breathe he hastened to get a word in edgewise: " _Please!_ "

"Please, what?" The tone was still mild, but his eyes were on fire and bared silver serrations gleamed around every word. 

A desperate and annoyed groan: "You know what I want!"

"Humour me, won't you?"

Well, he'd put himself in this position, and when his mind was this lust-addled he knew better than to try to match Megabyte at verbal sparring. Especially with those claws raking fire up and down the length of his cock. "I want — oh Cestia's ghost, I want you to fuck me until I can't see straight!"

Megabyte's eyeridges rose in an expression of appalled reproof. "Such language, Bob!"

"Are you kidding? I haven't even gotten started yet…" He started to prop himself up on one elbow, to whisper things against that sweeping scarlet crest that would have made a King's guardsman blush, but found himself slammed back down again and pinned to the tabletop by steel fingers wrapped around his biceps. He struggled against them, but might as well have tried to break free from the inch-thick iron shackles in the King's dungeons. 

"Let's review, shall we?" Megabyte asked in a light and almost cheerful tone. "You interrupt my work, get water on my notes, shamelessly expose yourself after I've made it clear that I'm not interested… and you expect me to _reward_  you for such behaviour?"

Bob offered his most winning smile. "Yes?"

A rumbling laugh deep in his chest. "Oh, Bob… by the time I'm through with you, you'll wish you'd stuck to riding horses."

Bob opened his mouth to retaliate, but found himself lifted, spun, and laid flat on the desk again, this time face-down, so swiftly that he didn't have time to get out more than a quick gasp of protest before four searing lines of heat streaked across his buttocks. He yelped more emphatically and tried to straighten up, but Megabyte had an adamant grip on the back of his neck and wasn't letting him move an inch. " _Hey!_ "

"Oh, I'm sorry." Another shallow slash of unsheathed nails, which at least told him that Megabyte had dropped his armour. "Is that a little too rough for your tastes?"

" _Damn_  it, Megabyte —" He reached up and caught hold of the virus's wrist with both hands, a reflexive combat move, but of course he couldn't find the pressure points that would have offered vulnerable nerves on a flesh-and-blood opponent. That didn't stop him from squeezing tightly and trying to dislodge his captor's grasp, although he would have stood a better chance of moving the Earth Pillar from its moorings. The pulse of lust hammered in his temples, his lips, the arteries in his throat — and especially in his erection, pointing toward the floor, its root grinding against the edge of the desk. It hurt, but sometimes pain was exactly what he wanted, and exactly what his viral lover, with those teeth and talons and sharp metal contours, was so well qualified to give. 

Megabyte trailed slow claws lightly over the curves of Bob's tensed buttocks, barely scoring the azure skin, his voice growing even more velveted. "Perhaps next time you'll think twice before making me —"

"Will you shut the hell up," Bob spat, squirming and pushing his hips back toward that punishing hand, "and _fuck_  me already, you tin-plated megalomaniacal bastard!"


	2. Chapter 2

He expected to get another set of claws across the ass for that, and possibly the punishing smack of a metal palm on the sorest spots — but Megabyte, as usual, distained the obvious in favour of the unexpected. Bob was still tensed in anticipation of a blow when Megabyte bent close over him to murmur in his right ear:

"I'm going to let go of you, and I promise you that if you try to get up you'll be _very_  sorry indeed."

"A promise, huh?" Bob quipped. "Coming from you, we both know that —"

A tighter grip on the back of his neck and a little shake reminded him of how immensely strong the virus was — capable of throwing him across the room without any appreciable effort. "I'm quite serious, Bob. Now be a good boy and you'll get precisely what you desire. Disobey me, and I'll make things highly unpleasant for you."

Bob pondered that statement for a second or two. Megabyte lied the way most people breathed, but Bob trusted his own intuition and in this case… "Okay. But don't keep me waiting."

"Impatient, are we?" He was already moving — not far at all, just a quick step to the right to pick something up off the floor behind the desk. The sound of ripping cloth told Bob that it was the towel that had fallen unheeded when Megabyte had grabbed him. "Cross your wrists at the small of your back, if you please."

Intrigued, Bob bit back a smart-assed retort and did as instructed. Swiftly and efficiently a thin strip of fabric was wrapped around his wrists and tied off: tightly enough to effectively bind him, but not, he noted, so tightly as to cut off blood flow. He'd have to ask Megabyte where he'd picked up that particular skill — some other time, because the virus was taking hold of the crux of his bound hands and pulling him backward off the desk with that same easy strength, to sit him down hard in Megabyte's own chair, the seat of which was draped with what was left of the towel. Bob winced as his claw-scored buttocks came into contact with the slightly rough cloth, but he could appreciate Megabyte's reasoning: he didn't want to get blood on the expensive embroidery of the chair itself.

Looking up, he saw that Megabyte was looming over him with back straight and shoulders squared, legs braced wide apart, hands resting on the angular ridges that marked the upper curve of his hips. His own erection, a rich indigo that phased to scarlet at its tip, was in full cry, but his pelvis was cocked a little to one side rather than presenting the shaft to be licked and sucked as Bob would have expected under the circumstances. It was a posture subtly unusual in a way that Bob couldn't quite put his finger on — not that he had a finger to spare at the moment, of course. 

"Comfortable?" Megabyte asked with a solicitude made dark by the quality of his smile, which was still distinctly unsettling.

Bob squirmed enough to get his bound hands tucked into the hollow of his back. "Like you care."

"Oh, I do, actually." The virus leaned over at the waist and curved one set of slender fingers around Bob's erection, stroking slowly from base to tip. "I'll need you nice and hard if you're to perform your function well."

"My —" It didn't take a genius to put two and two together with Megabyte's posture, which was now readable to Bob as an almost defiantly feminine form of sexual display, and come up with a delightfully high number. Bob's heart leaped in his chest and began to beat faster: Megabyte possessed both male and female anatomy, but it wasn't very often that he permitted Bob to do more than stroke and occasionally lick the outer edges of the slit that ran down from the base of his tapering penis. Today, it appeared, was to be one of the notable exceptions to that rule. 

"I take it there are no objections?" Megabyte purred after a couple of seconds. Bob, who'd been staring at the virus's groin with wide eyes, came back to himself with a little shake of his head.

"If there were," he said, raising his eyes to the gleaming green gaze above him, "I don't think you'd listen to them anyway."

Megabyte's smile grew even wider and more predatory. "How perceptive," he remarked, and taking hold of the back of the chair with one hand and tightening his hold on Bob's erection with the other he moved into position with that catlike grace that made even the most mundane or awkward actions somehow beautiful. Bob barely had time to feel overwhelmed by the alien body looming over him before his cock was being guided to its destination and he forgot about everything else, overcome by the heart-stopping pleasure of being sheathed in living liquid metal, stroked and clasped by barely cushioned hidden machinery. The sensation of Megabyte's most intimate secrets did not fail to have its usual effect: Bob let out a yowl, his hips bucking upward, then a hiss as Megabyte released his shaft and brought raking claws to his left shoulder, forcing Bob back down into the chair with the hard weight of his pelvis.

"Now, Bob," Megabyte growled in his ear, "you know better than that." And Bob had to admit that he did: he'd asked Megabyte to fuck him, and that was exactly what was going to happen. He didn't get a vote in the proceedings. 

"All…" So hard to think with that dangerous pressure holding him fast, binding his throbbing heat with nearly painful tightness. He concentrated on relaxing his shoulders and his spine, then closed his eyes and tipped his head back to bare his throat, a gesture of submission that the animal-keen senses of his deadly lover would instantly recognize. "Okay."

"Very good." The growl was now a purr. "And do I really need to mention that I expect you to restrain yourself?"

He knew exactly what Megabyte meant. He didn't like it, but he understood the order. "No, I got that part."

" _Very_  good," and Megabyte was moving again, sliding up and pushing down with effortless and precisely controlled power, milking Bob's cock with steady relentless pressure. All he could do was gasp, and pant, and occasionally whimper: a slave to the machine, and judging by the deep rumbles that vibrated with increasing frequency in Megabyte's steel breast, one who was playing his role admirably well. The hand that had laid burning marks into his shoulder was now curved around the back of his neck, holding him in a grip that, although hard as iron, was also careful of his fragility; in fact there was a tenderness in the ruthless stimulation that shouldn't have been possible, but Bob was used to Megabyte effortlessly encompassing contradictory qualities and didn't think too much about it. What mattered was the bonds that chafed his wrists, the lithe yet massive body that pinned him in place with such precision, the helplessness, the _willingness_  to surrender that set Bob on fire and pushed him to the edge of an orgasm that he didn't dare let himself have. This was about his pleasure, but it was also about following orders, and although he usually refused to give Megabyte the satisfaction of an easy victory…

…well, sometimes victory could be a gift. And sometimes it was perversely thrilling to do exactly what Megabyte demanded of him, if only because it was something that happened so damned seldom in their contentious and contrary relationship. 

There was that, but also the fact that having Megabyte ride his cock with that steady drawing pace, his own alien erection rubbing against Bob's belly and marking a trail of lustful wetness on his skin, was pretty damned satisfying in itself. It promised that soon Bob was going to get a taste of what was now being taken, and he had to bite his lower lip and concentrate on counting backwards from one hundred to stop himself from flooding Megabyte's depths with the evidence of his passion and his lack of self-control. He'd gotten down to seventy-three when the virus, whose throaty vocalizations had become one steady thrumming backbeat, suddenly sank down fully on Bob's shaft and pierced the skin of his neck with sharp claw-tips, a tremor running through his stiffened frame as the female part of him clenched around his sprite lover with new force. For a second the rush of bliss was so intense that Bob thought he was going to explode, or pass out — or quite possibly both. But he held on like grim death, and after a few seconds Megabyte relaxed and he could breathe again, pulling in shallow gulps of air that were laden with the scent of the virus's iridescent skin, so hot and so close. 


	3. Chapter 3

"Such commendable and uncharacteristic obedience!" Megabyte murmured after a few seconds more, scarcely sounding winded at all in spite of the fact that he'd just enjoyed (Bob had absolutely zero doubt) a very fine orgasm indeed. "I suppose you'll want a medal now."

Bob couldn't help but grin at that, in spite of the fact that his cock was still trapped in that marvellous heat and throbbing on the painful and precarious edge of self-control. "I'd love to hear _that_  presentation speech," he shot back, knowing he definitely sounded breathless and not caring a whit. "V'resla would have a heart attack right there on the Chamber floor."

"Hm. That _would_  solve a number of problems, wouldn't it?" The virus's internal structures did something wonderful that drove a low imprecatory groan from Bob's lips, a sound that made Megabyte chuckle against his hair. "But not the one you're currently facing, I'm afraid."

"You can't keep me here all night," Bob hissed through clenched teeth, although he was starting to have his doubts about that.

Another laugh, the deep menacing sensual timbre of it settling at the root of Bob's cock and vibrating there torturously. "Can't I? That's a trick we've never tried before, isn't it? Perhaps the work you so rudely interrupted _can_  wait until —"

In spite of Megabyte's grip on the back of his neck, Bob was able to angle his head forward just enough to apply a hard bite to the ridge that, in a creature of flesh and blood, would have been a collarbone. "Bullshit," he said bluntly, and launched right into the next sentence without giving Megabyte time to interrupt: "Sure, you like riding my stick every once in a while, but that's not what really gets your juices flowing. You want to make me give your cock a good long lick and polish, and then you want to bend me over this desk and give me another taste of your claws and fuck me until I scream. You want to break open my gates and conquer me like Erastus the Magnificent conquered the city of I'vartalan, and —"

The words caught in his throat. He still had his pride, after all, which Megabyte had once observed was quite out of proportion to a creature his size. The virus stepped smoothly into the gap: "And… you rather fancy a bit of rape and pillage?"

"That's stretching the metaphor a little far, but yeah, basically." 

"It was a simile, actually," Megabyte corrected, unsheathing his talons just enough to bring fresh blood to the wounds he'd made in the throes of climax, making Bob wince. "But I'm impressed that you had the presence of mind to make an historical reference in the first place."

"You know me," Bob quipped, his thrill-seeking instincts only tweaked higher by the sting of those claws and the burning of the scores on his buttocks, which, typically for minor wounds, ached far more than they should. "I live to impress you."

This time the laughter was sardonic. "Yes, I can tell." He leaned back enough to shift his grasp and close his right hand around the front of Bob's throat, to tilt the smaller sprite's jaw back and look directly into his eyes. Meeting the virus's brilliant green gaze with red embers burning at its heart, Bob was amazed all over again by how quickly that draconic face, so stern and so alien, had become to him the most cherished and arousing sight in all of Lethe, along with that caressing tone of voice meant for him alone: "I don't need to conquer you, boy. You already belong to me, body and soul — and you well know it."

It was awfully hard to argue the point when Bob's erection was still rock-hard and buried deep. "Megabyte," he said earnestly, "if it'll get you inside me faster I'll call you the God Emperor of Ice Cream and sign an affidavit swearing that your cock tastes like sunshine and rainbows." He wriggled his hips a little, producing delicious friction that Megabyte allowed, and glanced down as best he could with his head braced upward in the crook of steel fingers. "'Course, I'll have to actually taste it first…"

A skeptical rise of one eyebrow ridge. "Will you, now?"

"Just to make sure," Bob asserted. "You wouldn't want me to lie under oath, would you?"

Now there was a quality of Megabyte's laugh that Bob heard quite seldom: the genuinely amused, his head tossed briefly back. It made his sheath ripple again, slightly but marvellously. "Oh, Bob… we certainly can't have that, can we?" His grip on Bob's throat tightened enough to serve as a reminder that even when pleased he was still a deadly force, then loosened, gliding to one side to curve around the line of the sprite's jaw so he could trace the line of Bob's lower lip with his thumb. "I suppose you do deserve a reward for your exemplary conduct…"

"What, no medal?" He sounded wounded, but as Megabyte slid off of him and straightened even the cold shock of the room's air on his wet and heated prick couldn't dampen his enthusiasm. Two seconds later his open mouth was very full, and although he hadn't cared much for sucking the cocks of other men in his sexual experiences prior to being taken to Megabyte's bed he'd quickly discovered that he felt entirely differently about this: the hard sleek glide of it on his tongue, a core of hot steel sheathed in thin velvet and finely textured silk, the taste primarily metallic but with a blended note of something darker that Bob was always just on the verge of remembering. Very clearly  _not_  organic, and Bob wasn't sure what that said about him, that he found it more wildly exciting than the scent of any man or woman he'd lain with in this lifetime. 

Megabyte's hand had curved around the back of his head now, but he needed no urging to push himself onto that shaft and take it as deeply as he could, his mouth and throat relaxing with practiced ease to admit the invader. And oh, there it was, that soft rumbling growl, the first sign that his ministrations were penetrating the shield that Megabyte habitually wore between himself and the rest of the world, and Bob smiled, swirling his tongue in the clever dancing patterns he knew were well appreciated when Megabyte withdrew enough to let him pay some attention to the pointed head. 

"Such a clever boy," Megabyte murmured with a smirk that Bob didn't need to open his eyes to know was there. "With a most inventive mouth… one scarcely even notices the lack of your hands."

"Mm-rr," Bob smiled, licking and sucking harder, and was rewarded by a deeper thrust, the flow of lubricant lavishly coating his tongue. He opened himself to it and let himself relax in his bonds, let himself be pulled forward, let himself be filled and taken and used. No man was his master, but Megabyte… well, Megabyte wasn't really a man, so it didn't really count, did it? Did it matter, when it felt so perfectly right?

"Quite." His other hand stroked the thick strands of hair back from Bob's forehead, presumably the better to enjoy the sight of his face with a machine's cock three-quarters buried in it. "And I must say, this also has the inestimable advantage of shutting you up for once…"

Bob bit him, and not gently either. It was an attack that would have put an organic on the ground, screaming and clutching at his bleeding genitals. To a virus, of course, it was only a more intense form of foreplay. Megabyte growled a soft laugh that was pure sex and managed to push a little deeper, his hard fingers tightening in Bob's hair to hold him steady. "I'm so glad you agree."

"Mrrrrph!" Bob growled, opening his eyes to glare an unequivocal warning upward: _You'll pay for that later, you son of a bitch._  Judging by the smug expression on Megabyte's face the virus wasn't at all worried about future retaliation; nor did he find Bob's annoyance off-putting in the least, quite the opposite in fact, if the way he was guiding Bob to move at a slightly faster pace was any indication. Bob closed his eyes hard, consumed by a burn that was half anger and half lust — not an unusual combination when it came to his dealings with Megabyte, and one that, as usual, only drove him to more impassioned heights of emotion and action, his lips and tongue and teeth marking hieroglyphs of desire and devotion on the alien substance of the creature he'd been crazy enough to take as his lover… but if this was insanity, Bob had long ago decided that being sane was a vastly overrated state of mind.

[TO BE CONTINUED...]


	4. Chapter 4

Far too soon for Bob's taste, Megabyte took the sprite's face between both hands and stepped back, leaving him empty and burning with impatience that flashed in his amber eyes as he glared upward again. "That's enough of that," the virus said pleasantly, "for now," and he smiled with a long unnerving gleam of cool metal points all the way back to his crest, tracing Bob's lower lip with one thumb. "You seem uncharacteristically hungry this evening, Bob; could it be that you —"

"What're you going to do," Bob demanded, " _talk_  me to death?"

Brighter fire kindled deep in Megabyte's eyes, and he curved the fingers of one hand under Bob's chin, wrapping the other around the back of the sprite's neck. Bob, who was expecting another a lecture, was pleasantly surprised when he was pulled forward with swift strength and found himself sprawled face-down on top of the desk, once again pinned by a stern hand on his nape — and there it was at last, the burn of talons raked across his ass, making him jerk and yelp in earnest when two more criss-crossing slashes streaked swiftly across the backs of his thighs, not deep enough to reach the muscle but certainly hard enough to be clearly felt. " _Ah,_  Megabyte! What the hell —!" 

"That's for impertinence," Megabyte growled, then delivered another two strokes, these ones upward, that caught the lower curve of each buttock and made Bob yell again and squirm as best he could with both hands tied behind his back.

" _Hey!_ "

"And histrionics." Two delicate clawtips, pricking the supremely sensitive skin where the rear of his balls met his body, immediately commanded his complete attention. He didn't have to see the wolfish quality of Megabyte's smile, baring far too many silver teeth, to know it was there. "You'll have to forgive me, _iroja_  — you bleed so beautifully, you see." The claws lightly teased him for a dangerous second, sending savage thrills of excitement and apprehension through his entire body in poignant contrast to the more tender emotions evoked by the endearment. "And as you've noted on more than one occasion, blood… what was that colloquialism you used? Ah, yes: 'gets me going'."

"Just don't get any bright ideas," Bob hissed. "I want you to screw me, not neuter me!"

Megabyte chuckled and slid that razored touch away down his inner thigh, each talon trailing fire in its wake. Bob gritted his teeth and opened himself to their heat. "Would I do something like that?"

The tone of innocence didn't fool Bob for a second. "Let's not find out, okay?"

A flick of the virus's fingertips cut deeper, making Bob flinch and firing him up even more. "And you have a reputation for being so daring!" Megabyte mocked. He shifted his hand to Bob's cock, surely not missing the way the sprite trembled with barely restrained sexual tension as his erection was enclosed in a precisely controlled grip of slowly pumping steel, as red drops from the shallow wound in his thigh started to make their way towards his knee. "Very well, Bob. Perhaps this will be more to your taste…"

He didn't have time to do more than stiffen in delicious anticipation before both his nape and his prick were released and the solidity of Megabyte's body was pressing him flat to the desk, long-fingered hands closing around his waist with irresistible strength. The virus's thin tongue, long and black and slick, curled around the curve of Bob's neck with prehensile agility to taste the thin red cuts his own claws had incised into the sprite's azure skin — and more than that, to offer the far deeper caress of spirit against spirit as their etheric fields entwined, a process only made possible by the sharing of blood. Bob relaxed with a shuddering gasp and tilted his head as best he could to expose more of himself to that eerie caress as it was repeated on the other side, the sly serpentine glide of it sending white-hot shivers down his spine, his eyes drifting closed as he opened his thighs and pushed his ass back against the shaft of hot iron that now pressed against his cleft, promising so much more. 

Under the combined stimuli of physical lust, emotional desire and Megabyte's presence gliding smoothly over his mind like the descent of a winter's night, words came only with difficulty: "Oh, yeah… that's, just, just like —!"

With a faint hiss the tongue was retracted, leaving only a whisper of glorious dark etheric presence behind. "Bob?"

"Huh?" 

"Hush," Megabyte rumbled, pulling away and flipping Bob easily over onto his back before moving in again, and _in_. Bob spread his thighs as wide as he could and howled without restraint, accepting the irritable arching of the virus's spine and the sharp bite that broke the skin on his left shoulder as only due payment for his disobedience, wishing desperately that he could use his hands. But he was finally, _finally_  being fucked with long hard gliding strokes that sent rhythmic waves of burning pleasure through his entire body, and that was all that truly mattered as he wrapped both legs around the virus's waist and held on tight and opened his lips to be kissed again and again, forceful and penetrating and reptilian and absolutely perfect.

Keyed up as he was, he didn't last long. Megabyte's grip on his upper arms kept him firmly pinned as he twisted and bucked, his appeals to Cestia muffled against the virus's mouth, and he drank Megabyte's own muted roar and the faintly perceived rush of his partner's orgasm when sharp pulses of virulent green semen filled him a brief span of heartbeats later — and then all was quiet for a long few moments except for the rush of shared breathing gradually slowing down. Bob closed his eyes and just luxuriated in it, spread open under his lover's weight with his head still pleasantly abuzz. They didn't indulge in etheric contact very often — Bob himself had insisted that he wanted it to be a special occasion — but whenever they did he always ended up grinning like an idiot afterwards…

… at least until Megabyte withdrew and straightened to his full height, and the cold world rushed back in again. Bob unlocked his thighs reluctantly and let his feet drop to the floor, wincing at the reports of injuries coming in from several different bodily quarters, and at the severing of the final tenuous etheric link. " _Ow,_ " he said plaintively, expecting absolutely no sympathy.

Which was exactly what he got. "Need I remind you that you asked for this?" 

"I asked to be taken to bed," Bob protested, "not fucked over your desk!"

"Surely you're not complaining?" Megabyte took hold of his biceps again, this time pulling him upright to lean against the edge of the desk in question, holding him steady until he was able to support his own weight.

"Yeah, a little." Sharp claws sliced through the torn towel binding his wrists with one swift pass, and he took a few seconds to flex the kinks out of his shoulders, grimacing as his bitten trapezius registered the lingering sting of Megabyte's teeth. "Ramor's right: I've gotta be crazy to keep letting you get this close to me."

A soft throaty laugh was Megabyte's response, a sound both intimate and thrilling, as he braced his hands on the desk to either side of Bob's hips and leaned in to caress the aching wound with a slow stroke of his tongue. "Don't try to lie to a master, Bob," he murmured against the sprite's neck just below his ear. "You adore it."

"Like I said: all kinds of crazy." He slipped his arms around that ridged waist that was narrower than his own and laid his cheek briefly to the hollow of Megabyte's jaws where scarlet "skin" thinly covered his teeth, which were once more demurely concealed, before glancing at the floor, where books and papers lay in a random jumble. "What a mess…"

The unexpected sharpness of claws drawn slowly across his left buttock made him jump — but the contact was light, nothing more than a tease, even if it did make the original scores smart more acutely. "Go and clean yourself up, _iroja_ , and let me take care of the rest."

"Whatever you say, _navaro_ ," Bob sighed with real gratitude: he hadn't been looking forward to picking up all those leather-bound volumes, and so he went gladly, still feeling a little like he was walking on air — an aftereffect of the etheric sharing, one that rapidly faded once he started applying a warm wet cloth to the various breaches on his skin. When he emerged from the bathroom for the second time that evening, clad in a bathrobe and having tidied up his cuts and bite-marks sufficiently to carry him through until he could visit Healer Ramor in the morning, all the books and papers were neatly back on Megabyte's desk and he was once again at work, armour-clad and appearing as composed and immaculate as if he hadn't just spent ten solid minutes ruthlessly dominating his lover, making the sprite bleed, and having two orgasms himself in quick succession. This was no surprise — Megabyte had a genuine talent for looking like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth immediately after having devoured the contents of an entire dairy — but still, it made Bob feel somewhat out of sorts in a way that wasn't entirely unpleasant.

He approached the desk and settled himself very carefully into the more padded of the two chairs that stood in front of it. "Hey," he said.

Megabyte didn't look up. "Still awake? I'm impressed."

Bob shrugged, wincing just enough to drive the point home: "I'm still recovering from being shown so much favour." 

One eyebrow ridge rose a fraction of an inch, although he kept his eyes on the book he was scanning. "A little sore, are we?"

The sprite shifted in his seat. "Let's just say I'm not going to be sitting on hard chairs anytime soon, that's for sure…"

There was that conspicuous lack of sympathy again. "And who, pray tell, do you have to blame for that?"

Bob snorted, unimpressed. "Those aren't _my_  claw marks on my ass."

"Oh, don't be such a child," Megabyte said with a trace of impatience. "You'll be fully recovered in time for the next Narrow Patrol."

"No thanks to you," Bob muttered.

Megabyte looked up and studied him for a moment, a cruel smile playing on his lips. "You know, you're actually rather charming when you sulk."

Bob manfully resisted the impulse to stick out his tongue. Instead he retorted: "Flattery will get you nowhere."

With a shrug that was the essence of disinterest Megabyte went back to making notes in one of the ledgers. "I take it you're sleeping in the warrior's barracks tonight, then?"

Bob stared at him, his silver eyebrows rising, then drawing together in a ferocious scowl. "Cestia's balls," he said with feeling, "you're a bastard, Megabyte!"

"Why, thank you!" He was still smirking.

Bob shook his head in disgust. "I must really be out of my mind…"

"A lamentably short trip, I must say." 

Another glare, and a tighter grip on the arms of his chair. "I'll get you for that!"

"You're certainly free to try," Megabyte remarked, manifestly unconcerned. "However, let me remind you that I have an exceptionally long memory and a talent for devising inventive forms of retaliation."

"Yeah, well, I…" Bob fumed for a second longer, then pushed himself to his feet. "Screw it, I'm going to bed."

"Don't bother waiting up for me. I intend to finish this dissertation on the Kormara Treaties, which will —"

"Fine." He headed toward the bedroom somewhat stiffly, ignoring the virus when Megabyte called wickedly after him — "Sweet dreams, Guardian!"… but in his heart he was as satisfied as he could possibly be, considering that he'd probably be sleeping on his stomach for the next several hours. He appreciated an interlude of tenderly passionate lovemaking as much as the next guy, and certainly there'd been a number of nights like that in this convoluted relationship, but when you threw in some claw marks, a few bites, a couple of choice insults and the exhilarating cut-and-thrust of a rousing argument…

Crazy, definitely — but for him and Megabyte, a winning combination beyond a shadow of a doubt. And Bob wouldn't have had it any other way.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The terms 'iroja' and 'navaro' refer to a popular myth in western Lethe concerning the God of Night and Winter, Navarro, and a young mortal man who caught His attention, Iroja; the story of doomed love ends with Iroja dying and being turned into a constellation in the winter sky by his Divine lover. Megabyte started calling Bob 'iroja' out of the blue one day and it took Bob a while to figure out the reference. (It was also a test of sorts, of course. Most things are with Megabyte.)


End file.
